Summer program keeps kids fed

Friday

Jun 8, 2012 at 12:01 AMJul 5, 2012 at 3:05 PM

Free breakfast, lunch offered to area children

Leigh Kreimeier

Kids still need good food even when school is out and the Stuttgart School District is accommodating them. Park Avenue Elementary is participating in the Seamless Summer Program, which provides free breakfast and lunch. The dates for the program are June 18 to June 21, June 25 through June 28 and also in July from July 9 through July 12 and July 16 through July 19.

From 7:30 to 8 a.m. breakfast will be served and from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. a sack lunch will be available.
Eighteen and under, all kids eat free, Jennifer Euler, child nutrition director for Stuttgart Schools explains. She said the program is open to anyone in the community that is 18 or younger and she asks that anyone participating come through the front doors of PAE, as all other doors will be locked.

“This is a great program,” Euler said. “You can’t say that there isn’t anything free anymore because there is. This is free breakfast and lunch — you can’t beat it.”

School districts participating in the National School Lunch (NSLP) or School Breakfast Programs (SBP) are eligible to apply for the Seamless Summer option. Once approved through their governing state agency, school districts serve meals free of charge to children, 18 years and under, from low-income areas.

Stuttgart is considered an open site so all children eat free in communities where at least 50 percent of the children — Stuttgart is 68 percent — are eligible for free/reduced price school meals.